ABSTRACT
Two Reuters reporters were arrested in December 2017 by the military and subsequently charged with breaking the colonial-era Official Secrets Act (OSA) for obtaining documents about the execution of ten Rohingya boys and men in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state. Despite being pardoned in May 2019, the judicial travesty of their conviction and more than 500 days in jail had a major impact on international perceptions about press freedom in Myanmar, a nation widely denounced around the world for the military’s expulsion of some 730,000 Muslim Rohingya in 2017–2018. Their saga illuminates the nexus of ethno-religious nationalism and continued military repression in a nation that seemed on an upward trajectory of democratization. The jailing of the Reuters reporters and the atrocities against Rohingya exemplify the democratic backsliding that has quelled the euphoria that greeted Aung San Suu Kyi in 2015 when she led her party to a landslide election victory. This chapter explains the broader political context to assess the implications of this miscarriage of justice on press freedom and Myanmar’s fragile democratic transition.
